


The Thing That Makes You Awesome

by Verity_Kindle



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Gen, Irondad, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter is keeping Secrets, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Well IronDad in training anyway
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-06-29 11:16:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15728292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verity_Kindle/pseuds/Verity_Kindle
Summary: New York City is in the grip of a heat wave, everyone else is busy, and Tony Stark is bored. In an effort to keep himself out of trouble, he invites Peter Parker to hang out with him for a week for superhero boot camp, because Tony is The Best.But Peter’s keeping a secret that could have dire consequences if Tony doesn’t discover it in time.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Hey kids! 
> 
> Yeah, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m well aware I’m in the middle of another story. I just got bitten with the idea for this one and couldn’t help myself! So hopefully you guys will be getting frequent updates on two stories rather than no updates on either. I really hope you enjoy, and will be interested to see whether Peter’s secret is one that can be ferreted out by sharp readers before Tony manages it. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!

Tony remembers hearing someone say, once, that a universal law about people is that the thing that makes you awesome is the thing that makes you suck. He can see it, honestly. He sees it in himself. Everything that he can admit is awesome about him (genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist) is also the heart of everything wrong with Tony Stark. 

(“Philanthropist,” they call him, and he wants to be sick because nobody gets how useless money is, how easy it is to give it away and pretend it’ll ever do anything but put a bandaid over the gaping wounds you caused. It’s a bandaid for his conscience, at least. Tony hates philanthropists.)

He’d argue it’s true of most of the people he knows. Pepper would probably be able to make a really brilliant, coherent argument about personal strengths and flaws that would explain it all. For all his genius, though, Tony likes to keep some things simple. The thing that makes you awesome is the thing that makes you suck. 

He’s not sure it’s true of Peter Parker, though. 

Part of that is because he still doesn’t know the kid that well. They’ve fought together a time or two since Peter saved his tech from the Vulture, and Tony invites the kid upstate to the compound whenever he can manage it with his schedule. He likes the kid - likes him a lot, actually - but they’re still on rather formal terms. He doesn’t really get what makes him tick. 

The other part of it, that Tony won’t admit to anyone, is that he’s not sure there’s any part of Peter that isn’t pretty awesome. The kid’s brave and resourceful and unselfish. Pretty much all Tony can find to fault him with is some impulsivity and lack of judgement, which - hell, if they’re being marked down for that, then Tony is screwed. There’s the annoying pop culture references, too, of course, and the tendency to spend more time running his mouth in a fight than he should, but again - Tony can only be so much of a hypocrite. 

(It scares him a little, sometimes, just how much Peter reminds him of himself. Pepper jokes once that they ought to get his DNA tested to be sure he’s not somehow Peter’s biological dad, and Tony shudders away from that thought, because oh god. There are so many levels of awful in that thought.)

(The most awful is how much, in that instant, he would love it to be true.) 

So anyway. Peter saved the day, got his suit back, hangs out with Tony once in a while, blah blah blah. Life is actually going pretty well, for once. No world ending disasters, nobody insisting Tony get dressed up and smile at the cameras for no reason. Pepper isn’t just back, she’s engaged to him? Tony still can’t begin to understand that. Life is good. 

It’s summer in New York City when everything goes to hell - and, of course, nobody notices it’s even happening until way too late, because that’s how life goes. 

It’s shockingly hot, for early July. (And here’s where the thing that makes Tony awesome - billionaire - is also the thing that makes him suck, because he’s literally too rich to feel the heat. He lives in air conditioning pretty much constantly. The news that people are actually dying in the heat wave takes him by surprise because he literally hadn’t felt a moment of discomfort.) Vision is nowhere to be seen most of the time (Tony Isn’t Asking, he just isn’t, because honestly he doesn’t want to know) and Rhodey is off being awesome at everything he does, and Pepper is a busy CEO, and honestly, Tony Stark is bored. 

(He knows he has ADHD, ok? Not news.)

He’s so bored that he considers calling up Cap and trying to hash things out - but honestly, the world probably wouldn’t survive another showdown between them. And that’s the sign, right there, that he needs something to do. 

“I need something to do,” he tells Happy, drumming his fingers so rapidly on the table that he can SEE Happy’s blood pressure rising. 

“Uhh, how about work? Like the rest of us?” Happy says grumpily. Tony waves a hand at him. 

“I’m all caught up on disasters, and if I start another round of tinkering Pepper will leave me, for real. C’mon, you’ve got to know something interesting.”

“The most interesting thing I’ve heard all week has been Spider-Boy’s stories about getting free ice cream,” Happy grumbles. “I don’t get to know interesting things anymore. You don’t let me.”

“Boredom is better for your heart,” Tony points out. He leans back in his chair until he’s almost tipping over, just to prove to himself that he still can. “You’re not as young as you used to be.” The glare Happy shoots him is pretty good, but it doesn’t amuse Tony for long. 

He misses Bruce. There was always something to do when Bruce was around, and at the very least, the possibility of him Hulking out at any moment kept things lively. 

Spider-Boy, though. There was some potential there. He points at Happy. “Get me Parker. He can come - I don’t know, come hang out for a week or so. Call it intern camp or Stark Summer Symposium or something.”

Happy rolls his eyes. “Parker is working. Unlike some people.”

Tony raises an eyebrow. “Working?”

“Uh, yeah?” Happy is distinctly unimpressed with Tony, which is just unfair. He’s never impressed by Tony. Even Peter managed to impress him with the whole airplane/Vulture/not burning down Coney Island Thing. Tony gets no respect. “Got a summer job. Ever heard of that?”

It really, really hadn’t occurred to Tony - but it should have. Of course Peter has a summer job. He’s been in their apartment. He’s seen the evidence of Peter’s dumpster diving, for God’s sake. Not everybody is a billionaire. (He sucks.) 

“Where’s he working?” 

“Window washer,” Happy grunts, but even he looks kind of amused at that. “Apparently he’s got a head for heights!”

“No,” Tony says sharply. “No, nope, nuh-uh. Kid with a brain like that, if he’s got to be working for the summer instead of rotting his brain out, he should be working in a lab or doing something that will add to his college applications. Why the hell didn’t he ask me for a real internship?”

Happy just looks at him - just looks, long and unblinking, and Tony finally gets up and walks away. He’s way more bothered about this than he ought to be. Didn’t Peter know he would have helped? What good is it being a genius billionaire philanthropist if people won’t let you do them any good with any of it?

(Tony sucks. He’s so, so aware of it.)

But he is a genius, after all, and so he doesn’t pick up his phone and call Peter. He calls Scary Aunt May. 

Within ten minutes they have it all safely arranged, and Tony can go to his lab and happily putter around, already thinking of ways he can bestow wisdom and knowledge on a starry-eyed young Peter Parker who will hang on his every word. It’s good to be Tony Stark. 

Peter calls him an hour later, and Tony pats himself on the back before he picks it up. It’s kind of like being Santa Claus, only in July, and with a hell of a lot cooler wardrobe. Now to bask in adulation. 

“Heeeey, Mr. Stark,” Peter says hesitantly. “I, uh. I just talked to Aunt May?”

“What a crazy random coincidence, Mr. Parker. So did I.” Tony is having fun. 

“Umm.” Peter is probably dumbstruck by his generosity. “She said you wanted me to - to come hang out next week?”

“That’s right.” Tony pulls up schematics on the really really top secret suit he’s totally not building for Peter is absolute secrecy and grins to himself. “Superhero boot camp. You’ve got a lot still to learn, young man, and I hear you’re wasting your summer on manual labor?”

“It’s not!” Peter protests. “Not wasting, I mean, Mr. Stark! It pays really well, and I - I like being up high!”

“Not a problem,” Tony says airily. “We’ll spend some time working on aerial maneuvers. You need strategies for when you’re not in the city.”

Peter gulps audibly, and Tony narrows his eyes. That’s not really what he was expecting. “Look, Mr. Stark,” the kid says breathlessly. “Thank you - honestly, thank you so much, but I - I don’t want to take up your valuable time. I know how busy you are-“

“Oh, you have no idea,” Tony says honestly. He throws a pencil at the ceiling and regrets not having those cheap foam ceiling panels for it to stick into. “Let’s just call it investing in the future, shall we? I’ll see you bright and early Monday morning.”

He hangs up before the kid can say another word. Score one more for - he pauses a moment to consider. Iron Santa? No, Iron Claus sounds way more badass. The kid’s summer will be made, and Tony will have something to keep him busy enough that Pepper won’t have to kill him and bury him in his own suit. 

~~~~~~

On Sunday evening, he decides he really ought to be up to date with what the kid’s been up to, just in case. It probably looks better for him to know, since he’s ordered the kid to show.

“Hey FRIDAY,” he calls. “Show me what Spider-Man has been up to. Just the interesting stuff, though - if I wanted boring, I’d watch that new documentary on my dad.”

FRIDAY hesitates just a fraction of a second. “From what time period?”

Computers aren’t supposed to sound uncertain - but, then, Tony did program her. It’s ok if she’s exceptional. 

“I don’t know - the past week or two,” he says lazily. She hesitates again. 

“Boss, the past few weeks look a bit odd, based on what Karen has to report.”

“Odd doesn’t tell me much.” Tony sits up and starts flipping through information on his own. 

“Boring, maybe?” FRIDAY tries. Poor dear, she doesn’t really get human emotions. “Not much to see here.”

“Ehhh, it’s the heat wave,” Tony decides. “Too hot for crimes.” There’s nothing alarming in the reports. Peter’s been catching his same normal small potatoes - muggers, bike thieves, creeps who stalk girls at night. No injuries or major issues to report. It’s pretty much exactly what Tony hopes the kid is always up to. 

There’ll be plenty of the awful stuff for him to face later. A fifteen year old has no business dealing with alien weapons or murderous villains. 

(Tony is awesome, because he made the kid a super suit that lets him fight anything. This is also why he sucks.)

“Boss,” FRIDAY starts. “How much do you know about spider biology?” 

“Way more than I want to.” He mutes her with a flick of a finger before she can gross him out with more awful facts about spinnerettes or compound eyes or whatever else. Sometime FRIDAY is also the worst. 

He wakes up way, way too early on Monday morning. It would be really embarrassing to admit how excited he is to hang out with a highschooler this week, so Tony doesn’t. But he does ride along with Happy to pick Peter up, and he makes Happy wait in the car.

The Parkers’ apartment building doesn't have air conditioning. It’s not even super hot yet, this early in the morning, and Tony is sweating as he makes his way to their front door. Summer is gross, New York City in summer is gross, and closed-in hallways without AC are the grossest. 

Their apartment doesn’t have AC either - not even a window unit - and Peter, in the way of reprehensible teenagers everywhere, keeps Tony waiting for approximately forever as he gets ready. May tries to offer him any manner of awful-sounding baked goods, and it’s only his natural charm and charisma that let Tony escape unscathed. By the time he’s finally descending the stairs with a shockingly reticent Peter Parker, Tony has privately vowed to a.) secretly install AC in their whole apartment building and b.) make Happy go get the kid tomorrow. 

Peter is quiet the whole way back to the Tower. (Yes, Tony sold the Tower. Well, most of the Tower. Well, part of the Tower. Mostly he just moved stuff away and pretended to sell it because Tony has Issues with letting go of things. Shut up.) It’s kind of super creepy, but Tony isn’t the best with mornings either, so he lets it go. 

He has plans for the week (and super secret plans to extend this week to more than one, if it goes well enough) and is eager to get started, so he throws a box of Pop-Tarts at the kid on the way in to his (totally not moved to the compound) lab and spreads his arms wide, welcoming. Peter fumbles, drops the box on the floor, picks it up again. Tony gracious ignores the evidence of teenage clumsiness and grins a little wider. 

“Welcome to the first annual Stark Summer Symposium for Gifted Youth!” Peter blinks at him. “You have all been specially selected because of your gifts and potential.”

Peter, bless his little cotton socks, actually looks around as though he thinks there are going to be other participants. Tony could cry at that level of innocence, if he weren’t busy having an utter blast. “Yes, folks, that’s right. Personal mentoring by yours truly! Hands-on experience with bleeding edge nanotechnology! All the junk food you can eat, and a really excellent-sounding experience to put on your college applications. Beats washing windows in the heat, wouldn’t you say?”

His smile fades a little as he watches Peter, who is just - off. He’s present and looks excited - well. Keyed up, anyway. He’s got his arms wrapped around himself like he’s cold, though, and is shifting from one foot to the other, nervously. Maybe Tony went too fast with all of this. 

But the kid nods at Tony’s question, and he can see the hunger in his eyes as Peter looks around the lab. He knows the intellectual curiosity of that brilliant brain, and this lab has got to be the mental equivalent of one of those ice cream sundaes with twenty-seven scoops of ice cream that nobody is ever supposed to be able to finish. He’ll wait out the kid’s nerves, and then it’ll all be cake. 

And he’s pretty much right. It doesn’t take Peter long to warm to the engineering topics Tony has set up for them to explore this morning. The kid really is remarkably bright; not Tony Stark, MIT-at-15 brilliant, but honestly that’s for the best. Nobody should be that smart and that poorly prepared to face the world ever again. There’s so much Peter can learn just by being allowed to experiment in ways that even his awesome school would never allow, and Tony is really really good at letting people go way farther than is wise. Just watching the kid go is enough to ease some of the nerves that tick away in his head all the time, like they’re counting down to something he can’t see coming. 

(The thing about being a genius is that sometimes your brain is so far ahead of everyone else that it’s light years ahead of you, too, and you don’t know why you know a thing, just that you do - and nobody can listen to crazy like that, so you can’t even talk about it. This is another way that Tony sucks. He’s so smart that he’s literally too stupid to understand himself.) 

They forget to eat lunch, caught up in nanoparticles and the possibilities of adapting Peter’s latest web fluid formula for emergency medical applications, and it’s not until FRIDAY breaks in to tell them it’s almost six that either of them even realize it. 

“Yikes,” Tony says, shoving away the project and suddenly feeling all the aches and pains he’d been ignoring. “Well, what do you say we grab a quick bite and then do some patrolling? I thought I’d tag along tonight and watch you work. You know, get an idea of your vulnerabilities and weak points, and then we can work on them this week.”

Peter goes suddenly, horribly pale, and backs up three steps, tripping over an abandoned stool and crashing to the floor with a crack of the elbow that makes Tony wince. 

“Uhh, I-“ he stammers, pulling himself upright with all the grace of a baby elephant. “I can’t, Mr. Stark. Not tonight.”

“Why?” Tony is surprisingly hurt. He’s good company on a mission, after all. 

“I, uhh.” Now Peter has gone bright red. “I forgot to bring my suit?”

“You forgot to bring your superhero suit to superhero boot camp week?” Tony says slowly. Heaven preserve them all from sleep-deprived teenagers. 

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark.”

And now Tony needs to kick himself really, really hard, because Peter Parker looks like he’s on the verge of tears. The poor kid is staring at the toes of his shoes as though they alone can save him from the wrath that’s headed his way. Tony shakes his head, and puts an arm around the kid’s shoulders. 

“Not a big deal, kid. Just bring it tomorrow. We’ve got some updates to make, anyway.”

Peter nods - but there’s a tenseness in his shoulders that doesn’t go away. It leaves a weird feeling in Tony’s gut as the kid heads home via Happy-mobile, and he has to shake his head. Just goes to show he doesn’t actually know everything about this kid, yet. 

Like the fact that he hadn’t eaten anything all day. Tony frowns at the untouched box of Pop-Tarts. Surely the kid’s enhanced metabolism should have been acting up from a full day without food?

Kids, Tony concludes, are weird. 

~~~~~


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for the support and encouragement! Can you tell I’m having fun? Hope you enjoy!

Peter brings his suit on the second day of Tony’s Amazing Experience of a Lifetime. Which is a good sign, because if he’d forgotten it twice in a row, Tony would have had to ask some really sarcastic, pointed questions, and neither of them really needed that. He’s weird, though. Twitchy. 

Maybe that’s his thing, Tony thinks. So much energy that he’s able to save the world singlehandedly, but also he drives people crazy?

That’s not it. 

Peter twitches his way through some basic suit maintenance diagnostics, and flushes a terrifying shade of pink when Tony pulls up usage statistics and frowns at them. 

“Huh.” He says it carefully, deliberately. And he waits. 

“Mr. Stark,” Peter starts desperately. “I haven’t been - it’s been a strange couple of weeks.”

“Uh-huh,” he says. He flips through a bit of information, pulls up the data for the last two weeks. Peter has only logged three hours in the suit in the past fortnight. He narrows his eyes at the kid. “If you tell me you’ve been going out in that long-underwear getup again, swear to god I’ll-“

“No, of course not!” It’s too quick and panicked to be anything but the truth, and Tony relaxes a bit. (Only a bit, because that just means he can check off one mortally stupid idea. Who knows how many more this kid can come up with?) “I just - haven’t been going out much. As Spider-Man. You know.”

It’s endearing, just how uncomfortable the poor boy looks, and Tony can think of a few reasons that his self-appointed duties might have suffered. Maybe Peter is actually acting like a teenager instead of a preternaturally mature adult. Maybe he’s having an average teen summer, for once, including the mind numbing summer job and some questionable parties. Maybe he’s even found a special someone. 

Tony is not going to ask about his dating life. Some lines, they don’t cross. 

But he’s the last person on earth who will ever try to make Peter feel bad about taking a bit of time off, and so he nods as though the kid’s explanations make any sense, and moves them along. 

There are suit modifications to be made. (Ohhh, are there suit modifications to be made. Tony has a list as long as his arm, and he’s only willing to reveal so many at a time. No sense letting anyone know just how much time he spends thinking of improvements to the Spider-Man suit. Might verge on stalker-y, to the outside observer.) Again, once they’re into the swing of it, Peter relaxes and is his normal sunshiney self. 

Maybe Tony needs to do more of these one-on-ones, get the kid to lighten up a bit. 

Peter is all brilliance and dedication as they work through upgrades to hardware, software, and even basic issues of suit sizing. He’s grown at least an inch since Tony made the suit for him, and modifications have to be made. (His voice cracks and soars a few octaves when Tony teases him about it. It’s one of the best moments of his week.) It’s - almost relaxing, actually, and Tony never feels that way when he has other people in his lab. It tends to feel like an invasion, like he’s letting them rustle through his underwear drawer, and he hates it so much. Peter doesn’t feel foreign, little weirdo though he is. 

(Oh lord, that’s a scary thought. Maybe the thing that makes the kid awesome and sucky is the very fact that he’s so similar to Tony.) (He isn’t, though. Not really. He’s so much better already.)

Peter is actually pretty much back to normal, for him, by lunch time, and chatters so much that he barely manages to get food into his mouth. That’s kind of a victory to Tony, who is secretly delighted that the kid isn’t overawed by him anymore. Yes, it had been kind of fun to listen to his stuttering hero-worship, but it’s better this way. Less fake-feeling, because Tony knows damn well he’s not worth that kind of adulation. Face to face, talking about how faster than light travel could theoretically be possible, they both feel more real. Less performance. (Tony is so damn tired of performing, all the time.)

So anyway, they eat and head back to the lab. (He worries, for a while, whether his awesome Week of Wonder is turning into something less than overwhelmingly cool. Most kids wouldn’t be that impressed by a few straight days of labwork. It takes a certain number of heartfelt cries of, “Mr. Stark, this is the coolest thing ever! This is the best day of my life!” before he’s willing to concede that, if you’re Peter Parker, this week is pretty good. Kid is weird.) 

“OK, time for some pre-field test tests,” he calls, once they’re done with all the modifications he’s willing to cop to planning, so far. “Get the suit on and let’s see how those new settings hold up.”

Peter goes all stiff and weird again, and Tony rolls his eyes. He turns his back pointedly, as though seeing the kid put on another layer is some kind of weird. Peter seems to not realize that he changes really, really publicly practically every day. It’s a miracle nobody has spotted him. (No, it isn’t, because Tony’s got a whole subroutine installed in FRIDAY to watch for that sort of thing and destroy all digital evidence, every single day. Nobody’s going to have video of this idiot kid stripping down to his skivvies in a back alley to use against him.) Peter stands still for too long, hesitant, and then sighs heavily and goes to change. Tony waits until he comes back, and then has to hide a snort of laughter because the kid is stuck in his own suit.

“It’s not funny, Mr. Stark!” Peter protests, which just proves that it absolutely, certainly is funny. “Something’s twisted or something!”

Tony comes over to help, bearing up manfully under the urge to laugh hysterically. The poor kid has one entire sleeve inside out and caught up in the back of the baggy suit. It’s not totally his own fault, though, as it turns out they’ve kind of left a mess of a few wires that wound up getting tangled, but still. Prime blackmail material, and Tony is leaving it uncollected and unblackmailed. He’d better get a cool mug for this. 

“Thanks,” Peter mutters, ears scarlet as Tony finishes fixing him up, and goes to shove his arm in the sleeve. Tony grabs it, frowning a little.

“What’d you do, elbow Happy in the face this morning? Not that he probably doesn’t deserve it.” Peter’s elbow and upper arm is one giant purple and red bruise, which - 

Tony’s never seen Peter bruise before. (His brain starts screaming about leukemia, and Tony has to shut that down RIGHT AWAY because some things are too ridiculous for even Tony Stark to worry over. The kid doesn’t have leukemia. He just doesn’t.) (Note to FRIDAY: increase Stark funding to all pediatric hospitals in the New York City region. Just in case.)

“No! Of course not!” Peter is more than offended at the suggestion. “I wouldn’t, Mr. Stark, not ever! He would probably die!”

Tony frowns at the arm some more. “That’s quite a whack you took there, kid. What happened?”

Peter gets that look on his face - and Tony knows it so well, because he does have a mirror, after all - the look of I Am About To Lie To You, And It Won’t Even Be A Good One. He waves it away before the kid can embarrass himself, and narrows his eyes. “Better question - when did this happen? Because I thought your super-healing took care of these things pretty damn quick, so unless you knocked a hole in the wall really really quietly after lunch-”

Something happens - the kid’s hand spasms, or something, and next thing Tony knows, he’s webbed to his own Iron Man suit (latest prototype, anyway), and his brain switches tracks. “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he says drily.

“Oh my god, Mr. Stark, I’m so sorry!” The kid is practically babbling in alarm, rushing forward to help. “That was me, that was totally on me!”

“Obviously,” Tony snaps. He doesn’t like this stuff, though he appreciates the fact that it saves Peter’s life on a regular basis. Feels horrible. All sticky and stretchy in just the wrong ways. “No, wait, don’t take it off yet. I need to test a few things. I’m working on a compound that I think might neutralize your solution, and I want to see if it works. Grab me the vial from my desk there, would you?” The sticky webbing is absolutely disgusting, clinging to his hand, but this is science. If Tony can come up with a way to dissolve the stuff, other people can too, which would mean they need to improve Peter’s formula. 

It takes half an hour (and several minor skin abrasions, but he’s not going to admit to those) to get Tony unstuck, and then he’s a mile deep in chemical formulas and potential methods of weaponizing the dissolving compound he’s concocted, and he forgets all about Peter’s weird bruise, now totally concealed under the costume. 

He’ll regret that, later.


End file.
